CAT

Being a student of IMT Nagpur I believe I can answer this. IMT recently updated its cutoff. So earlier they had eligibility of 70percentile. But as of now, it's not possible to get admission at the 70 percentile. Work ex helps in placement. There's no doubt about that but IMT selects based on marks and not work ex. Companies do give preference to one with work ex. Besides 70percentile is a low score. You'll get an average college with this score. I'll suggest studying more and applying next year because an MBA is something we do once in our lifetime and after that mostly we'll apply for a job rather than a Ph.D. So why not get admission to a decent college which has good placements and brand value too?

I can say one thing, there is no better place to prepare for CAT than college. If you analyze the results and admissions Statistics you may notice that many people are in the upper percentiles and make their way to an elite college straight out of college. However, it requires a lot of dedication and effort on your part. Here is how you can prepare for CAT:
1. Familiarize yourself with the exam syllabus and pattern Identify your strengths and weaknesses.
2. Create a preparation strategy for each section. Collect required study material.
3. Register for mock tests in early June. Try to write as many mocks as possible. (I appeared for 20 simulations, ideally 20-30 simulations would be fine. ). Analyze mockups diligently.
4. Identify your areas of difficulty during the simulation and try to improve them.
5. Develop reading habits during preparation, there is no other supplement for the CAT VARC section than this one. Try reading content from all genres (fiction, philosophy, business, art, Science)
6. Find a mentor who can guide you in the right direction, having a good mentor is really very important.
7. Last but not least if you are aiming for the top 5 IIMs with nothing less than 99.8 percentile. Try to score 150+ consistently (I'm thinking medium LOD mock). .